Author:
Publication: Mumbai
Newsline, The Indian Express
Date: September 30,
2000
Log-jammed traffic, idling
engines and hour-long delays. Even as the government vacillates over
footing the bill for completing the unfinished 1.5-km long Andheri flyover,
a report prepared by IIT, Powai, has estimated the cost of this traffic
chaos.
Prepared for Mumbai Newsline
by the IIT's Transportation Systems Engineering group, the report estimates
the daily loss caused by the flyover at Rs 5 lakh or over Rs 17 crore annually,
enough to build a small flyover.
``However, these are
extremely conservative estimates, if we considered other factors like vehicle
depreciation and annual maintenance, the costs could double to Rs 34 crore,''
says Dr S L Dhingra, professor of Transportation Systems Engineering.
The report takes into account the value of fuel lost due to idling engines
at the stretch, time lost by motorists and the increased health costs due
to environmental pollution.
The flyover was billed
as one that would whizz vehicles over the Sahar, Gold Spot and Andheri-Kurla
road junctions in under 10 minutes. Instead, the chaos now caused
by the flyover has made the stretch a traffic bottleneck. This is
compounded by the fact that traffic, which speeds down the other finished
flyovers on the highway, is deposited into the logjam at these junctions.
The 13 km per hour average
speed of vehicles at the junction before work on the flyover began has
now dipped to 3.8 kmph, says the report. Due to this abysmal average
speed, increased fuel is consumed due to frequent stops and starts, acceleration
and deceleration at the junction. The report says that the value
of fuel lost here could be over Rs 3 crore annually. Assuming an
increase in the total pollutants from these idling engines and its impact
on the health of motorists, pedestrians and residents, the report pegs
the cost of environmental pollution at Rs 6.5 crore.
Work on this flyover
ground to a halt last year after a petition was filed by the Bombay Environmental
Action Group (BEAG) in the Bombay High Court against the Build Operate
Lease Transfer (BOLT) project and the proposed commercial utilisation of
space under the mammoth structure. The BEAG said the commercial exploitation
of the space by the builder beneath the flyover would cause further traffic
chaos.
Dr Dhingra was part of
the three-member advisory committee appointed by the high court in March
this year which recommended immediate completion of the flyover and a careful,
phased commercialisation of the space beneath.
The high court then directed
the state government to pay the builder Rs 72 crore as costs incurred for
the flyover and take up the project itself.
